his meal, says with a sigh, "Ah, poor Dido, how she would have enjoyed
those bones!" Probably she would have done so, in case they had not been
her own. Of course we all know Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_, and that
it is all about luxury. It is, however, very poetical poetry (if I may
say so), and I don't know that it gives much assistance to a sober,
prosaic view of the subject like the present. "O Luxury, thou curst by
heaven's decree," sounds very grand; but I have not the least idea what
it means. The pictures drawn in the poem of simple rural pleasures, and
of gaudy city delights, are very pleasing; and the moral drawn from it
all, viz., that nations sunk in luxury are hastening to decay, may be
true enough; but what strikes one most is that, if Goldsmith thought that
England was hastening to decay when he wrote, what would he think if he
were alive now.

Well then, if the pleasures of luxury bring nothing but pain and trouble
in the pursuit of them, to what end do they lead?

"Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend,
And see what comfort it affords our end.
In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,
The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung;
On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-ty'd curtains never meant to draw;
The George and Garter dangling from that bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red;--
Great Villers lies--alas, how changed from him,
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim.
Gallant and gay in Clieveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
No wit to flatter, left of all his store;